Many types and mixtures of metal salts and soaps of natural or synthetic organic acids, particularly carboxylic acids, have been suggested and commercially offered over several decades. These have been used to supply metals in forms which are soluble in organic liquids, especially in various hydrocarbon oils and solvents, to form solutions having various desired properties and uses. For example, such metal salts have found uses as catalysts, and or as fuel and lubricant additives.
Metallo-organic compositions of this type are also useful as stabilizers for polyvinyl chloride-type plastics.
Another major field of use for this class of compounds is in the area of drying catalysis for paints, varnishes and other coating compositions. This process of drying through the use of metal carboxylates and soaps is discussed generally in Kirk-Othmer, Concise Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, John Wiley & Sons, (1985), pp. 370-371. This article is incorporated herein by reference.
As various organic carboxylic acids have become available in commercial quantities, either from new natural sources, or as synthetic acids or standardized synthetic acid mixtures, the possibility of using these to produce metallic salts or soaps has been motivated, for example, by a lower price; by a relative uniformity of the commercial acids; or by a better color, or at times the non-colored, characteristics of the salt products; by higher solubility of the salt products in various solvents in other components of ultimate products for which the metal salt is to be used; or stability in storage of the metal compositions or of their solutions. Neutral salt or soap compositions contain one mole of a carboxylate group per equivalent of metal present.